Choice of words, especially with regard to precision of meaning, clarity or impact.

aerienoun -ae·rie - \ˈer-ē, ˈir-, ˈā-(ə-)rē\The nest of a large bird, built high up on a cliffside or mountain, with a beautiful view.

MISSION STATEMENT:

A warm welcome to The DICTION AERIE ™-- an experiment in restoration.It's time to celebrate the musicality, rhythm and vigor of the English language again, via word choices that roll and rumble with the joy of life. Friends of our mother tongue will be invited to share new poems, essays and short stories, with an eye on re-energizing a war-weary Mama. For two decades, a myriad coarse forces across the World Wide Web have been corroding and cheapening the English language with lazy grammar, vulgar slang that evolves faster than a flu virus, the neo-fascist babble of political correctness, fundamentalist hate rhetoric and... OMG... giddy mobile shorthand. When our prime conveyor of thought falls ill, societies that depend upon it also stumble. That's why, whether printed, spoken or seeded in the Cloud, diction does matter, because language is the mother of thought. And who among us -- politicians, spin doctors and bigots aside -- wants the world to know their Mama raised a fool?

One force grinding Mother English down is the glib acronymic code of texting, as in "LOL" -- or "Lame Over-Used Loitering." Cell-phone-speak is the lingua franca of feed-me teens and (we) the hovering parents who conditioned them with delusions of entitlement,until many of the young ones devolved into a trance-eyed Selfie Generation. When in human history have so many (allegedly) well-educated people seemed so devoid of discernment? All of us who are glued to mobiles -- sad Surfing Serfs of the First World -- seem oblivious to how methodically we're being groomed for fiscal harvest by the parasites of Madison Avenue, whose marching orders flow from Web Goliaths like Amazon and FarceBook. Let's face it, limp diction is a lubricant for the machinery of mindlessness. It gathers and enchants the loafing masses, then anesthetizes them with convenience. So the First World Paradox is this: depending on how much we care, we might be both empowered and enslaved at the same moment by the Web's sickly sweet seductions -- that instant gratification I love to label "Insta-Grat."

The British poet William Butler Yeats, in a burst of prophetic brilliance a century ago, unleashed this melodramatic howl in "The Second Coming" ... "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold / Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world / The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere / The ceremony of innocence is drowned; / The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity..." Seems Yeats had a clairvoyant window on the soul of this decade, eh?

That's why The DICTION AERIE ™ has one core goal --to encourage all literate souls to reject the Device-Age Mediocracy that has trapped them deeply, down inside the Vapid Zone. This means resisting the soul parchers, the self-anointed low priests of pop culture -- by wielding words that buzz and glide then heal -- with health, humor and luminous common sense. Our hope is that folks, once beaten down by banality, will feel re-energized -- to stand up and live free again -- not in the dim light of some screen, but the Living Light of Day.Fresh diction alone cannot cure an ailing ethos; but it's a start. And as poet T.S. Eliot warned in Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock -- these are mission-critical "decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse." Fleeting as diction decisions may seem at first, when uttered with passion and precision, words carry astonishing power,and can move hearts and minds to truly advance humanity. The right words used in the best way -- benediction -- can fire up a fading love, create a candidate, build a brilliant business, launch a Renaissance or spark a revolution that inspires millions; while the wrong words -- malediction -- can tear it all down in a thundering moment. If we rehab our diction with rigor, vigor and vim, our moribund culture just might find a way to rebound with fresh new life.

However, our default setting will never revert to pop-culture trends nor to milking those memes. We'll work hard to carry an impassioned standard but never pander; to delight and never dull the mind's eye.When seamless diction is the goal, there are countless risks. No communicator is flawless and no strategy is perfect -- given the vanity of human wishes and the Internet -- which today makes everyone a half-baked critic of nearly everything. Now the hour has come ... for a Bold New Literacy. It's time to gather our wits and reject the mass media brain blur, created and controlled by cable conglomerates, those New Vulgarians posing as a cultural elite. Their raw billions, backed by scant wisdom, propelled them into an arrogant, manipulative new cyber-aristocracy. But no New Order lasts forever. There's always room for something new under the sun -- hipper, fresher, brighter. So... get it on, word shapers -- pound your keys, keep reading, writing and ranting like you mean it. Each literate e-mail, text or (remember when) hand-written letter you create, is another salvo in the war on crudity and cultural dissolution inherent in "Insta-Grat," the fall-back lair of lazy brains.

Thank you for spending some of your precious time with us, here atThe DICTION AERIE ™ -- a hub for healing the language we all love -- and need to live. Readers are encouraged to comment as they wish or to contact the editor with new ideas, any time.Feel free to subscribe to as many Lit-Blogs as you wish. No charge! They are accessed below via the nine teal-colored buttons. We'll be adding new posts frequently, so check back often, sunseekers... I hope you enjoy reading these literary blogs, as much as we have relished writing them. I feel honored to share this time with you and will try to reply personally to every comment. Blessings of health and hilarity to all. Make it a great day! -- JH